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Travis Willock reviews
Touchstone Home Entertainment
- Cert: PG-13
- Cat.no: 29124
- Running time: 115 minutes
- Year: 2003
- Pressing: 2003
- Region(s): 1, NTSC
- Chapters: 16
- Sound: Dolby Digital 5.1, DTS 5.1 (eng. only)
- Languages: English, French
- Subtitles: English, Spanish, French
- Widescreen: 1.77:1 (cropped from 2.35:1)
- 16:9-Enhanced: Yes
- Macrovision: Yes
- Disc Format: DVD 5
- Price: $29.98
- Extras:Spy School: Inside the CIA Training Program, Deleted Scenes,Audio Commentary
Director:
- Roger Donaldson
Screenplay:
- Roger Towne, Kurt Wimmer and Mitch Glazer
Cast:
- James Clayton: Colin Farrell
Walter Burke: Al Pacino
Layla: Bridget Moynahan
Zach: Gabriel Macht
Ronnie: Mike Realba
This could have been great.
Colin Farrell is already showing greatpotential for his acting career, every role is believable (take a lookat his portrayal of Bullseye in Daredevil).Then you take Al Pacinowho is obviously a film icon, a living legend for his work in manymovies like Scarface and Godfather just to name a few. You pairthese two up and you should have a dynamite film. Mix in a really hotbabe (hope to see her in more) Bridget Moynahan and some CIA action andwe could have had a great spy caper. Somewhere along the line it went tothe shitter.
The Recruit seems tired and repetitive from the very beginning. At theopening montage we see someone opening computer files amongcredits… seen it. Computer genius James Clayton (Farrell) shows off anew program that you know will come into play later on… seen it. Cut toJames being approached by CIA recruiter Burke (Pacino) for a job… seenit (Confessions of a Dangerous Mind) but hey this could getinteresting if they play their cards right.
Clayton is taken to a CIA training facility called The Farm (originallyplanned to be title) where he is driven through a series of tests. Everytime something happens it always plays back to the saying “everything isa test”. Clayton begins an assignment that will test his strength but isit real? Or is Layla (Bridget Moynahan) and Burke playing him for afool? Doesn’t take too much to figure it out – hell, I had the whole flickfigured by the hour mark – maybe earlier.
That’s the problem with this flick. It stinks of wasted potential. Forsome of the time you won’t even know what Clayton’s runningfrom-seriously. Eveything seems so played, so boring that you’ll loseinterest within the first thiry minutes (and you still have a grueling90 minutes left). If the writers had really cared they could have made agreat spy thriller full of tension and interest but no-they took everywrong turn and we’re slapped with an average movie at best.
If there’s any good thing about this film it would be the players.Farrell, Pacino, and Moynahan deliver solid performances and shows youthat they can work with shit and still convince the audience.
Now here’s where the controversy begins. Touchstone Home Entertainmentpresents ‘The Recruit’ in an anamorphic modified aspect ratio of 1.77:1.
Modified, you say? Seems that director Roger Donaldson “intended” thefilm to be shot like this. So for the DVD he took the 2.35:1 image andopened the mattes to 1.77:1. This would be fine if we had a choice ofeither version, I don’t like the fact that this isn’t the way it’spresented in theaters. If the mattes were opened to say 2:20:1, fine but1.77:1 seems average and boring. Donaldson stated in a recent interviewthat the reason behind this was to exactly fit the proportions ofwidescreen TVs. Here we go again. Once everyone has WS sets (here inAmerica at least) they’ll start complaining about bars still beingpresent on 2.35:1 films, so the studio will do this and reformat it to1.77:1 (like what HBO-HD already does). Donaldson thinks more and moredirectors will do what he did when they realize they can get the best ofboth worlds-let’s hope not.
Besides that rant the picture quality is average at best. This is avisually unexciting flick. Compression artifacts are seen on screen andfleshtones are too grey. A few times I noticed red halos on their faces,compression artifacts as well. The film is all about subdued white anddark. Very boring to look at. The 1.77:1 image does not appear tocompromise the 2.35:1 image (caught it in theaters and it didn’t seem touse the 2.35:1 image very well anyway) and it says that you see morethan you did in theaters – but why does it feel so wrong watching it likethis?
Like the video the audio is average. A DTS 5.1 track is offered herealong with a Dolby Digital 5.1. The former is not something to boast ahome theater system since the action is VERY far in between. When thetrack does get to the action it’s good but not great as it could havebeen. The Dolby Digital 5.1 track seems pithy at best-most times low.
Touchstone provides ‘The Recruit’ with decent extras. Here’s how itstacks up:
- Spy School: Inside the CIA Training Program: A 16 minute look at the mystery surrounding The Farm and just how exactly theCIA trains recruits. A decent time-passing featurette worth a look.
- Audio Commentary: This track features director Roger Donaldson and actor Colin Farrell. Anoften very funny and informative track worth a listen.
- Deleted Scenes: 4 scenes with optional commentary. These really don’tadd anything to ‘The Recruit’ nor do they improve my dislike of thefilm. Strangely, each scene is presented in it’s theatrical ratio of2.35:1-non-anamorphic of course.
The CIA training featurette and the commentary stick out but that’sreally all there is to it-there’s no real meat here in the extras.
Packaging is amaray and uses the theatrical poster for the cover. Thereare 16 chapters. Menus are animated.
All in all you’ll walk away from The Recruit thinking of it as anaverage film. Well, kudos to you if you can actually get through it, Istarted nodding off towards the middle-it’s that boring. The DVDreflects the film as well-boring. Rent if you just can’t stand to notwatch it.
PICTURE QUALITY
SOUND QUALITY
EXTRAS
OVERALLEmailTravis Willock
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.